English Year 9 - Ten Things I Hate About Me: Home

'Ten Things I Hate About Me' eBook format 

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This interview for Words without Borders magazine article interviews Randa Abdel-Fattah and discusses her experiences as a Palestinian in Australia, how her professional life has influenced her work as an author, and her views on interfaith groups.

Randa Abdel-Fattah was born in Sydney in 1979 and grew up in Melbourne. She has written nine young adult books inspired by her research on racism, including Does My Head Look Big in This? Ten Things I Hate About Me, Where the Streets Had a Name, Buzz Off, The Friendship Matchmaker, The Friendship Matchmaker Goes Undercover, No Sex in the City, Jodie and the Book of You, and Rania and the Book of You. She worked as a litigation lawyer for ten years and is currently pursuing a PhD exploring everyday multiculturalism and racism in Australia, and remains passionate about my human rights activism....continue reading...

Jamie wants to be the real thing. From the roots of her dyed blonde hair...

There are a lot of things Jamie hates about her life: her dark hair, her dad's Stone Age Charter of Curfew Rights, her real name – Jamilah Towfeek.

For the past three years Jamie has hidden her Lebanese background from everyone at school. It's only with her email friend John that she can really be herself. But now things are getting complicated: the most popular boy in school is interested in her, but there's no way he would be if he knew the truth. Then there's Timothy, the school loner, who for some reason Jamie just can't stop thinking about. As for John, he seems to have a pretty big secret of his own...

To top it all off, Jamie's school formal is coming up. The only way she'll be allowed to attend is by revealing her true identity. Will she risk it all? And does she know who she is... Jamie or Jamilah? 

Publishers Weekly
Jamilah Towfeek hides her Lebanese-Muslim background from the other kids at her Australian school “to avoid people assuming I fly planes into buildings as a hobby.” She dyes her hair blonde, wears blue contacts and stands by when popular kids make racist remarks. Passing as “Jamie” is fraught with difficulties: she can't invite friends to her house, lies to cover up her widower dad's strict rules and reveals her true self only to an anonymous boy she meets online (her e-mail address is “Ten_Things_I_Hate_About_Me”)...read more...

Kirkus Reviews
16-year-old Australian-Muslim-Lebanese teen wonders who she really is as she straddles two cultural realities. Since her mother died, Jamilah’s overly protective Lebanese father imposes strict curbs on her social life while her hijab-wearing older sister is totally absorbed in political causes and her brother enjoys the freedom she’s denied. Jamilah attends madrasa where she studies Arabic and plays the darabuka drums in a student band, but she leads a double life...read more...

Quotes

“But persistent name calling? that prolongs hurt. It stretches out. Each nasty word stretches the rubber band further away until finally, one day, it snaps back at you with maximum impact”

“That's why when Peter started talking to me in homeroom this morning, i soaked up his attention like a doughnut dipped in coffee. The fact that his comments have left me soggy and wilted doesn't matter. That's the price you pay when you withdraw to the safety of anonymity”

"Sometimes the Jamie in me aches to be a blue-eyed, blonde girl of Caucasian appearance. The yard stick against which all Australians are measured"

". . . sometimes I feel that people would take him more seriously if he were fluent. They hear his heavy accent and he’s suddenly less Aussie"

"You’re just conforming to a nonconformist ideology"